| |
Home > Deafness & ASL > Evaluating Online Resources | |||||||||
Evaluating Online Resources
|
||||||||||
| .com = commerce | The
.com extension denotes sites that are usually, but not always, made for
selling things. For example, harriscomm.com
is the Internet address for a website that sells products for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing people. So, the site's section on compliance with the Americans
with Disabilities Act focuses on selling products to help businesses comply
with the law. |
| .edu = education | ![]() The .edu extension is reserved for educational institutions such as universities and other schools. Sites with this extension, such as gallaudet.edu, are usually reliable sources of academic information. Remember though that the information from a school's website will reflect the views and values of the institution. Gallaudet University, for example, is dedicated to the education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, and so the school's site with reflect that focus. |
| .org = organization | The
extension .org is supposed to be for non-profit organizations such as charities
and churches. For example, insightcinema.org
is the Internet address for a non-profit organization that lists open captioned
movie showings around the United States. However, many organizations that
are regular businesses use sites that have the .org extension, such as pacificdreams.org,
which is a translation company. So, you still have to be careful about using
information from sites with the .org extension. |
3. Sponsorship
Closely related to the issue of authority in finding objective and accurate information on the Internet is the issue of sponsorship. Although many sites can have more objective information than others, no perspective is completely free of bias. So, one way to tell if you can trust the information on a site is to find who sponsors the website and what their views on the subject are.
For example, companies that make alcoholic drinks will have different information on the Internet than organizations that warn against the dangers of alcoholism. Similarly, the following sites may have very different views of such topics as deafness, American Sign Language, cochlear implants, oralism, and so on.
|
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf
|
National Association of the Deaf
|
4. Up-to-date
One very important factor in evaluating information found on the Internet is how current the information is, especially if the information is time-sensitive. When was the website last updated? How frequently is the website updated? Is the information still accurate, or has it changed since the website was last changed? One way to check this is to look at the copyright information, usually near the bottom of the page.
This site has been updated sometime this year: ClubDeaf.com. When was the site created?
Can you tell when this site was last updated: SigningResources.com?
Pop
Quiz
1. What are four ways to tell how reliable and objective information from a website is?
2. Why is it important to check if information found on a site is up-to-date?
3. What does the Web address extension .edu mean and what kinds of institutions use it?
4. Why is it important to record the name of a website's author?
5. Why is it important to make sure information you find online is up-to-date?
Practice
Now that you have reviewed some guidelines to evaluate information you see on the Internet, check out some sites on sign language and Deaf culture and judge them for yourself.
| © 2010 F. C. Stamps |